BR TO ALYS RUSSELL, 6 OCT. 1893
BRACERS 20371. ALS(M). Camellia Collections. SLBR 1: #12
Edited by N. Griffin. Proofread by A. Duncan and K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
Pembroke Lodge,1
Richmond,
Surrey.
Oct. 6. 1893.

My Dear Alys

Yesterday’s conversation was so satisfactory that I have not thought of all the hosts of things left unsaid that usually occur to one. The sense of relief is so overpowering that it almost excludes for the moment the things that can be written about. However I have really innumerable things to say. — I told my grandmother we had explored South London on trams, which did not to all appearance cause her any annoyance. She was visibly relieved that Logan had not had to be told. I think she is growing perfectly resigned and will not object to anything any more. — I hope you will like my novel:2 the character of Irina seems to me quite a masterpiece, though it is a most annoying character as it always fails at the critical moment. Don’t you think we could form a habit of always having some book going which we are both reading? Whether a novel or a more serious book wouldn’t much matter. I think the next metaphysic book I shall read will be Paulsen’s Einleitung in die Philosophie which I gather is easy and amusing, and is full of quotations of poetry and altogether more human and less dry than most Germans. I imagine also that its views are fairly orthodox. I wonder if it would amuse you to read it when you are back in England?3 I shall have finished it by then and should be glad to lend it you if the German wouldn’t annoy you. I am hoping to do a fine solid term’s work and feel more fit for a good grind than ever before. I am now reading Elle et Lui by George Sand: it seems strange to English ideas to write about a piece of autobiography which appears on both sides to have been lived entirely with a view to making artistic capital ought of it:4 but the strangeness rather adds to the interest though it greatly diminishes one’s belief in the reality of the feelings narrated. I fear I shall never understand the French as long as I live, though all other nations seem intelligible enough. — There was one thing you will perhaps think trivial I wanted to say yesterday but forgot entirely: the photograph you gave me does not seem to me the very least like you, in fact it makes you look both ugly and disagreeable; if I am to give you a photograph of myself I shall have to be photographed on purpose, as I never have been since I was eleven, when I was chubby and round and used to be called Fatty by my friends; would you think it a very reckless extravagance also to be photographed again? Some time. — Don’t forget to give me your right address in Chicago. I am going up tomorrow instead of next day, so I shall get your letter at Cambridge. After that I shall have a very long time without a letter. — I hope you will have a comfortable journey and will not be ill and enjoy yourself in America. Tell me all about these things when you write from there. — I am looking forward very much to getting back to Cambridge and being able again to say what I think and not to mean what I say: two things which at home are impossible. Cambridge is one of the few places where one can talk unlimited nonsense and generalities without any one pulling one up or confronting one with them when one says just the opposite next day. This is perhaps a foolish pleasure but it is a wonderful relaxation when one has been very earnest all morning at one’s work or one’s novel. — I hope you will keep well and enjoy yourself and convert innumerable drunkards.

Ever yours
Bertrand Russell.

I must stop for the post.

• 1

  [document] Document 300012.

• 2

  my novel Turgenev’s Smoke in a German translation. The novel concerns the love affair between Litvinov and Tanya, which is brought to an end by Irina, Litvinov’s former lover.

• 3

  I wonder if it would amuse you to read it when you are back in England? Although they did develop the habit of reading books together, Alys thought better than to start with Paulsen.

• 4

  I am now reading Elle et Lui … making artistic capital ought of it The novel is based on Sand’s love affair with Alfred de Musset.